Many of you have asked, and we have an answer: Dentists indeed are eligible for both the Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans offered by the Small Business Administration (SBA).
Late last week the Small Business Administration issued an interim rule that lacked clarity regarding the ability of small business entities, including many dental practices, to apply for and utilize both the EIDL and PPP loans.
ADA staff immediately reached out to SBA and the Department of Treasury, as well as our friends on Capitol Hill, to express our concerns. Since we did not receive a satisfactory response from SBA and Treasury, we then sent out a call to action through our grassroots system requesting that our dentist members contact Treasury and SBA to voice our concerns. Those messages were also sent to our Congressional representatives, many of whom called ADA staff personally to express support for our efforts.
Thank you to those who heeded that call to action. I greatly appreciate you taking the time to do that.
As a result of these efforts, we are happy to report that our ADA Washington Office received a call this morning from the Small Business Administration indicating that eligible entities can apply for and receive both the EIDL loan and PPP loan regardless of when the entity received their EIDL loan dollars. We expect written confirmation to follow.
For those of you who responded so quickly by sending an email to your Congressional representatives, you may click here to send them a note of thanks for taking our weekend request into consideration.
Through our collective efforts, we were able to achieve the best outcome for our profession. Please know that the ADA will continue to advocate for our dentist members and their patients so that we can get through these tough times.
Stay well,
Chad P. Gehani, DDS
President